�You will chase your enemies, and
they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and
a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by
the sword before you.� --Leviticus,
Chapter 26, verses 7-9
�When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to
possess and drives out before you many nations . . . then you must destroy them
totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.� --Deuteronomy
7:1-2
� . . . do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them .
. . as the Lord your God has commanded you . . .� --Deuteronomy 20:16
There is not much doubt amongst Biblical scholars that the
Hebrew Bible contains some highly charged non-ethical suggestions, some of
which are no less than a call for a genocide.
Biblical scholar Raymund
Schwager has found in the Old Testament 600 passages of explicit
violence, 1,000 descriptive verses of God�s own violent actions of
punishment, 100 passages where God expressly commands others to kill people. Apparently,
violence is the most often mentioned activity in the Hebrew Bible.
As devastating as it may be, the Hebrew Bible saturation
with violence and extermination of others may throw some light over the horrifying
genocide conducted momentarily in Gaza by the Jewish state. In broad daylight,
the IDF is using the most lethal methods against civilians as if their main
objective is to �destroy� the Gazans while showing �no mercy� whatsoever.
Interestingly enough, Israel regards itself as a secular
state. Ehud Barak is not exactly a qualified rabbi and Tzipi Livni is not a rabbi�s
wife. Accordingly, we are entitled to assume that it isn�t actually Judaism per
se that directly transforms Israeli politicians and military leaders into war
criminals. Moreover, early Zionists believed that within a national home Jews
would become �people like all other people,� i.e., civilised and ethical. In
that very respect, Israeli reality is pretty peculiar.
The Hebraic secular Jews may have managed to drop their God,
most of them do not follow Judaic law, they are largely secular, and yet they
collectively interpret their Jewish identity as a genocidal mission. They have
successfully managed to transform the Bible from being a spiritual text into a
blood soaked land registry. They are there, in Zion, i.e., Palestine, to invade
the land and to lock up, starve and destroy its indigenous habitants.
Accordingly, it seems as if the artillery commanders and IAF pilots that erased
northern Gaza two nights ago were following Deuteronomy 20:16, they indeed did �
. . . not leave alive anything that breathes.� And yet, one question is
left open. Why should a secular commander follow Deuteronomy verses or any
other Biblical text?
Some very few sporadic Jewish voices within the left are
insisting upon telling us that Jewishness is not necessarily inherently
murderous. I tend to believe them that they themselves consider their words as
genuine and truthful. But then one may wonder what is it that makes the Jewish
state brutal with no comparison? The truth of the matter is actually pretty
sad. As far as we can see, Zionism is the only secular ideological and
political Jewish collective around and as it happens, it has proved once again this
week that it is genocidal to the bone.
As far as genocide is concerned the difference between
Judaism and Zionism can be illustrated as follows: while the Judaic Biblical
context is soaked with genocidal references, usually in the name of God, within
the Zionist context, Jews are killing Palestinians in the name of themselves,
i.e., the �Jewish people.� This is indeed the ultimate success of the Zionist
revolution. It taught the Jews to believe in themselves. To believe in the
Jewish state; �The Israeli� is Israel�s God. Accordingly, the Israeli kills in
the name of �his or her security,� in the name of �his or her democracy.� The
Israelis destroy in the name of �their war against terror� and in the name of �their
America.� Seemingly, in the Jewish state, the Hebraic subject reverts to mass
killing as soon as he finds a �name� to associate with.
This doesn�t really leave us too much room for speculation.
The Jewish state is the ultimate threat to humanity and our notion of humanism.
Christianity, Islam and humanism came along with an attempt to amend Jewish
tribal fundamentalism and to replace it with universal ethics. Enlightenment,
liberalism and emancipation allowed Jews to redeem themselves from their
ancient tribal supremacist traits. Since the mid 19th century, many Jews had
been breaking out of their cultural and tribal chain. Tragically enough,
Zionism managed to pull many Jews back in. Currently, Israel and Zionism are
the only collective voice available for Jews.
The last 13 days of merciless offensive against the
Palestinian civilian population does not leave any room for doubt. Israel is
the gravest danger to world peace. Clearly, the nations made a tragic mistake
in 1947 giving a volatile, racially orientated identity an opportunity to set
itself into a national state. However, the nations� duty now is to peacefully
dismantle that state before it is too late. We must do it before the Jewish
state and its forceful lobbies around the world manage to pull us all into
a global war in the �name� of one banal populist ideology or another
(democracy, war against terror, cultural clash and so on). We have to wake up
now before our one and only planet is transformed into a bursting boil of
hatred.
Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli jazz
musician, author and political activist. He also is a Palestine Think Tank
editor.